"What are those things?"
As Peter admired Wakanda inside the crater, his extraordinary vision caught sight of a large number of deep-black objects that looked like manhole covers. Flying outside, Tony glanced over and understood exactly what they were. "That's Wakanda's air defense system. Any unauthorized aircraft entering Wakanda will be shot down. That's how we crashed last time. But don't worry, the Avengers have authorization now."
[If one of the Ultrons manages to bypass its core logic and calculates a way to harm humans, it could potentially hack into Wakanda's air defense system and shoot down the Quinjet.]
Ultron chose a highly inappropriate moment to add this comment, plunging everyone present into silence. However, after waiting for two minutes without being shot down, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Soon after, the voice of Wakanda's air traffic control tower came through, guiding the Quinjet to a landing.
Wakanda was a place that had neither international flights nor any need for domestic ones—the entire country was essentially a basin formed by a meteor crater—so it was anyone's guess why they had built an air traffic control tower in the first place.
As the Quinjet made a vertical landing on a patch of open ground that might have been an airport, though it lacked a single aircraft, the Avengers arrived in Wakanda for the second time. The one who came to welcome them was, naturally, fellow Avenger Black Panther, followed by Princess Shuri and the Dora Milaje.
"Welcome, my friends. It would be even better if your visits didn't always come with such troublesome bad news."
T'Challa looked at the Avengers before him with a mix of resignation and reassurance. Cap stepped forward first to shake T'Challa's hand. "It's an emergency, T'Challa. You should have already received the reports regarding the situation. An Ultron program stole Adamantium and is now planning to seize Vibranium. Whether his target is the Vibranium that has already been smuggled out and scattered across the world, or Wakanda's rich Vibranium mound, we need your help."
"On the contrary, Steve. Anything involving Vibranium is a matter of Wakanda's national interest. In this regard, we actually need your help," T'Challa said, looking at the Avengers' Ultron behind Cap. This robot had already undergone a temporary modification by Pym and Stark. Simply put, they had changed the paint job on its chest and slapped a red 'A' on it to prove it was an ally.
An ally for the time being.
"Ultron... we need your assistance. Would you please go with Dr. Pym to our laboratory for a detailed discussion? Shuri will explain how we can use you to detect whether other Ultrons have breached our security network."
[Understood.]
Banner added a line here.
"I'll go along too. After all, I don't have much else to do right now."
As Ultron left with Pym and Shuri, T'Challa turned back to his guard captain, Okoye. "Go investigate the intelligence from the War Dogs. See which major bulk shipments of smuggled Vibranium exist and where they are located. Those places are highly likely to be our enemy's next targets."
Once Okoye left, T'Challa looked toward Tony. "How are your defense measures holding up, Stark?"
"A completely isolated data system and database, with no external data exchange whatsoever. Unless Ultron uses brute force to hack my armor, I'm fine for now. However, Spider-Man's nano-suit relies heavily on a constant network connection. If even a single nanite is compromised, it could cause the entire suit to collapse, which is why he isn't wearing it."
"Good. We will discuss the details at the palace. After all, we have all seen in the Kang Dynasty what an Age of Ultron would actually do to the world."
About half an hour later, inside the Wakandan Palace.
The Avengers gathered together to deliberate on the Ultron situation. Tony first pulled up a glass blackboard, drawing and writing on it. "If Ultron didn't lie to us, then he did indeed copy himself into five iterations, using different methods to fulfill the mission Pym gave him. This gives us three targets right now: first, the Ultron that joined the Avengers; second, the Ultron attempting to lower violence rates through free healthcare; and third, the Ultron that may have already turned to violence and stolen the Adamantium."
Aside from these, two Ultron units remained unaccounted for.
"Right now, the only thing we can be certain of is that Ultron will not adopt the extreme methods we previously anticipated. Or rather, Ultron itself rejected that path—but that is only according to what Ultron told us," Peter added from the side. "And we first need to ensure one thing: whether Ultron is lying to us."
Cap looked at the blackboard. "Are you saying Ultron might just be deceiving us? That he didn't actually split himself into five independent entities, but is instead a single entity playing five different roles to confuse us?"
"Exactly. For an artificial intelligence, that's completely doable."
Tony voiced his perspective. "If Ultron truly plans to achieve some form of human progress, livestock management, or ascension initiative, he will undoubtedly face one common and ultimate obstacle: the Avengers. The Avengers know Ultron best. Pym designed Ultron's core program, and Banner and I were both involved in Ultron's upgrades. We understand Ultron better than anyone, just as Ultron understands us."
"So it's entirely possible that Ultron would use any means necessary to eliminate us. For example, by infiltrating our ranks."
"Which is why I had Dr. Pym and Shuri examine Ultron for the time being. This Ultron has had no contact with Wakanda's network, and the network here is separated from the outside world by an efficient and independent information barrier. If we can verify here that this Ultron is indeed a standalone program running entirely on the robot hosting it, then we can trust it. Otherwise, we can't."
Having listened to the reasoning of these brilliant minds, Cap asked the question that mattered most to him: "So for you guys, which scenario is easier to handle? One Ultron or five Ultrons?"
"There are no five Ultrons, Cap. There is either one Ultron or infinite Ultrons."
Tony reiterated the point he had made earlier. "Once it's confirmed that Ultron has actively begun copying and separating himself, and applying distinct approaches to each version, then the Ultron we face will be infinite, not just one. That is, unless we can come up with some kind of... universal solution against all Ultrons. A technological solution. Magic won't work on this."
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